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It doesn’t happen often but every once in a while all of the family stars align to create the perfect day. You wake up to glorious sunshine streaming in through the windows as opposed to an inglorious bastard (a term of endearment between father and son) screaming at you through the walls. You unknowingly dress in matching outfits, please note that this is only perfect because it was unplanned, if you knowingly do this you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. Breakfast is a leisurely affair enjoyed together, food is traded willingly and all makes its way from bowl to mouth without a single unwanted detour, matching outfits remain pristine. Nappy changes are smooth and seemless, pooh is of a good consistency and barely requires a wipe giving off pleasing hints of oak and lavender on the nose.

You bump into parents you don’t like very much at the park and Max makes their children look like simpletons with a display of superior babyship, including the big four, talking, laughing, sharing and moonwalking. On your return home he goes to his room and points at the bed, he leans in for a cuddle and whispers “your the best Dad in the world”, I’m suitably impressed because up until that point his only sentence has been “bubble car”, a sentence flawed by its total lack of meaning. As soon as his perfect little head hits the pillow he is in a dreamworld of cars and bubbles. He sleeps for a solid four hours allowing you all the time you could possibly desire to fritter away with status updates, 4 press ups and a bit of Ellen. The afternoon is spent as it should be watching reruns of Peppa Pig on the bed, only this time you finally appreciate the postmodern sociological metaphors that are rampant in episodes such as Peppa Goes to the Park and Grandad Pig Has Lost His Glasses. Mum returns home from a day of bread winning to a house that does not resemble a gruesome crime scene, Max greets her with cries of “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy” and you have to pinch yourself to make sure all this is really happening.

Bath time is a riotous comedy sketch as the boy blows bubbles (yes from his bottom) and points at them shouting “bubble!” Hugs, kisses and high fives are exchanged before he is back in the land of nod and mum and dad can get down to the serious business of collapsing in an exhausted heap on the sofa, not before sharing a knowing look that says “look what we did, we made him!” There you have a perfect dad day, these are the days you go to bed and boldly raise the subject of a 2nd, 3rd, in fact what the hell we’re so good at this lets just make it 5 and be done with it!

Next thing you know it’s 4 am and you wake up to blood curdling baby screams, you bleerily step out of bed onto a toy car and let out a scream of your own, Anna then turns and screams at you to be quiet. You go to the nursery just to make sure that nobody is torturing your child and are hit with a rancid decaying nappy smell, the boy now has a fever and you wish you had have pretended to be asleep a little bit longer, I’m sure Anna was about to crack, damn her strong will! The next morning the sun has been replaced by rain, breakfast is thrown at you in disgust, you are both dressed like orphans, his pooh has a consistency akin to mushy peas and smells like something dead. The same parents he shamed yesterday look on in pity as he picks up leaves and eats them, you dose him up with Panadol and he screams in your ear something that sounds like “what sort of a Dad are you!’ and you receive a measly 20 minutes of “me time” as he thrashes around angrily in bed. You realise Peppa Pig is actually beneath you and every one of the eight episodes you are forced to endure is painful, Mum returns home to said gruesome crime scene and a baby that looks genuinely releived to see her, bath time is brought to an abrupt and poohy end as he tries a little too hard to make bubbles. Punches, kicks and bites (and thats just Mum and Dad, boom boom) are exchanged before you collapse on the sofa and look at eachother as if to say “adoption?” And there you have a bad day – most days are somwhere in the middle.